"Ah! it is such women as Madame de Mélusine who have taught you that doctrine," cried Nina, with an energy that rather startled Ernest, though his nerves were as strong as any man's in Paris. "My romances, as you term them, still I believe sleep in your heart, but the world you live in has stifled them. Do you think amusement will always be enough for you?—do you think you will never want something better than your empty champagne foam?"
"I hope I shall not, mademoiselle," said Vaughan, bitterly, "for I am certain I do not believe in it, and am quite sure I should never get it. Leave me to the roses of my Tritericæ; they are all I shall ever enjoy, and they, at the best, are withered."
"Nina, love," interrupted Selina, coming up with much amiability, "I was obliged to come and tell you not to be quite so energetic. All the people in the room are looking at you."
"I dare say they are," said Vaughan, calmly. "It is not often the Parisians have the pleasure of seeing beauty unaffected, and fascinations careless of their own charms. Nature, Selina, is unhappily as rare one side the Channel as the other, and we men appreciate it when we do see it."
When Vaughan parted from them soon after, he swore at himself for three things. First, for having driven Bluette, en plein jour, through the Boulevards, though he had driven Bluette, and such as Bluette, a thousand times before; secondly, for having been so weak as to introduce Madame de Mélusine to the Gordons; and, thirdly, for having—he the thorough-paced Lion, whose manual was Rochefoucauld, and tutor in love, De Kock—actually talked romance as if he were Werter or Paul Flemming, or some other sentimental simpleton.
Vaughan, to his great disgust, felt a fit of blue devils stealing on him, hurled one or two rose notes waiting for him into the fire with an oath, smoked half a dozen Manillas fiercely, and then, to get excitement, went to a dinner at the Rocher de Cancale, played écarté with a beau joueur, went to an Opera supper—not to the De Mélusine's—then to Mabille and came home at seven in the morning after a night such as would have raised every hair off Brutus's head, given a triumphant glitter to the Warden's small blue eyes, and possibly even staggered the hot faith of his young champion. Pauline de Mélusine was as good as her word—she did call on the Gordons—and Brutus, stoic though he was, was well pleased; for the baronne, though her nobility only dated from the Restoration, and was not received by the exclusive Legitimists of the old Faubourg St. Germain, had a very pleasant set of her own, and figured among the nouvelle noblesse and bourgeois décorés who fill the vacant places of the De Rochefoucauld, the De Rohan, and the Montmorency, in the "imperial" salons of the Tuileries, where once the noblest blood in Europe was gathered.
"It is painful to me to frequent Ernest's society," the Warden was wont to say, "for every word he utters impresses me but more sadly with the conviction of his lost state. But we are commanded to be in the world though not of it, and, if I shun him, how can I hope to benefit him?"
"True; and, as your cousin, it would scarcely be charitable to avoid him entirely, terrible as we know his habits to be. But there is no necessity to be too intimate, and I do not wish Nina to be too much with him," the banker was accustomed to answer.
"Anglice, Vaughan gets us good introductions, and makes Paris pleasant to us; we'll use him while we want him: when we don't, we will give him his congé."
That's the reading of most of our dear friends' compliments and caresses, isn't it?